Designed to upgrade raw kerosene distillate to kerosene or jet fuel (A and A-1), Elessent Clean Technologies uses the commercially proven yet innovative IsoTherming® technology to enable refiners to meet the specification requirements. The IsoTherming® kerosene hydrotreating units have been commercially operating since 2006, making < 10ppm sulfur products. Unique to the IsoTherming® process is a liquid full reactor ensuring the catalyst is completely wetted, maximizing kerosene yields by eliminating mal-distribution.
Kerosene feed types typically have low hydrogen consumption and often do not require an external recycle stream to satisfy hydrogen availability requirements as illustrated below. The IsoTherming® technology provides the ability to supply the necessary hydrogen solely through feed saturation without requiring a recycle pump which results in even fewer pieces of high pressure equipment. This benefits refiners with significantly lower capital costs compared to conventional technologies.
Refiners are often in a dilemma when deciding between kerosene sweetening and hydrotreating. Often, they select highly inflexible sweetening unit purely because of lower capital or operating costs. However, if they opt for the sweetening option, refineries lose the flexibility to produce superior, high-value aviation fuel and blend component to ULSD (for cetane, cold flow properties, etc.).
With IsoTherming® hydrotreating units, refineries gain several advantages:
The above points result in substantial capital cost (up to 30%) and operating cost benefits (30-60%) when compared to conventional trickle bed configurations.
This makes IsoTherming® kerosene hydrotreating an attractive alternative for refineries when compared to inflexible sweetening units.
